Carol's Travels

We had breakfast in the VIP Dining Room. We had upgraded our meals to the 6th floor dining room because four hundred people eat in the main dining room and only about thirty eat in the VIP Dining Room. The view is beautiful there too.

After we had eaten, we went on one of three extra tours that we had purchased: Tribe of the Three Gorges. As we walked along a trail above a stream, we would come upon costumed people playing instruments or just looking beautiful. We even watched a play at one point. The mainly Chinese audience found it very funny. I think it had something to do with a wedding night, and the groom was a volunteer from the audience.  

After that, we enjoyed seeing some beautiful waterfalls. People are obsessed with taking selfies with their iPhones. A lot of people came over to us and took pictures of themselves with us. It was funny watching them get their jollies this way! We then walked to a ferry which took us to our ship. I was the last one to board, accompanied by an entourage of five young male crew members. It was time for lunch, so we enjoyed leisurely eating as we cruised along. 
 

This afternoon everyone on two ships went on a well-organized shore excursion to the Three Gorges Project. Buses were waiting as we disembarked to take us to the dam. This adventure was very well-organized. When we got off the buses at the dam, there were three levels of escalators to take us to the top of the viewing area. Our guide gave us a lot of information about the project in excellent English. She said the pluses outweighed the minuses of the project. Even though they had to relocate so many people, it was less than those who died in the severe floods that have happened every ten years for the last 2,000 years. The dams provide a huge amount of power. Also, the higher water level has not destroyed the beauty of the gorges, because we can still see the beautiful mountains. 

 
The captain’s welcoming party was just before dinner. Goblets of wine and orange juice were beautifully arranged on a table in the lobby. There were also a few snacks. Paul said their wine made Trader Joe’s 2-buck Chuck taste like an excellent California wine 🙂 We decided to go to dinner.

We had just finished dinner when I looked out of the back door and noticed that we were starting to go through the first lock in the gorge project. We all went outside and watched the whole process for three of the five locks. Larry discovered that a crew member was throwing a looped cable over a floating tie down on the side wall to keep the ship in position. When the water level was high, he removed the cable. Then we moved forward on to the next lock. At 10:25 we were out of the locks, taking 3 hours and 15 minutes to pass through them.
17,966 steps/7.65 miles

 We enjoyed another western breakfast buffet at the hotel this morning. Then at 8:15 we were on the bus ready to go to the pagoda. Since it was a Sunday, the Buddhist priests and other Buddhists wearing brown robes were chanting, accompanied by a gong and a drum beneath the beautiful gold statue of Buddha. We watched them for a while, then our pagoda guide showed us other rooms in the pagoda. She wrote each of our names in Chinese calligraphy on rice paper. 
 
We then left for the airport. Today is the first time on this trip where we have noticed a polluted sky. It had poured for two days before we arrived in the city, so there were blue skies all day yesterday. Today it was back to normal. The traffic was congested, so we arrived later than Victor had hoped we would arrive. We checked our bags, went through security, then ran to the gate. Ten minutes later, we boarded the plane. I sat in a middle seat next to a retired German man named Guenther who lives in Berlin. He told me about his job as an exec for a pharmaceutical company where he did lots of international travel for his job. When his company was bought by Bayer, he retired. Now he can travel with his wife. They will be taking the Yangtze River Cruise in a group of fourteen Germans on the same ship as we are.

When our plane landed in Wuhan, we were met by another guide. She put us on a bus that took us to the train station where we would ride another express train. She rode with us on the train. This time we were riding in car #1, the first class car! The scenery enroute was much prettier than on our last train ride. There were lots and lots of green fields interspersed with houses along the way. After about two hours we arrived in Yichang where we would embark on our Yangtze River Cruise. We were surprised that the sky was so polluted here. We could even smell it.  

 

 
Before we got on the ship, though, she took us to a delicious dinner. A little while later, the Germans came into the same restaurant and sat at the table next to ours. After dinner we were driven to the ship, The Yangtze Gold 3. Our room is on the second deck of the ship. They brought us two additional comforters to make our beds softer. I am still using my air mattress.

8524 steps, 3.62 miles

The breakfast at the hotel this morning was really delicious. It was wonderful to get a full American breakfast buffet for a change!

We met our guide, Victor, in the lobby at 8:30 this morning. The crazy bus driver drove to the ceramics factory that makes knockoffs of the Terracotta warriors. They had many pieces of furniture for sale (which they would gladly ship), ceramic pieces, masks, and Chinese games. 

 
Next we drove about an hour to reach the site of the Terracotta Warriors. Quite a few years ago a farmer found one when he was digging a well. The government paid him a lot of money, took his land, then he was required to work everyday at the site autographing books for tourists. They wouldn’t even let him go on vacation. At 82 he became sick, so they let him go home. He is still alive, but he is very ill.

    
 
There were three huge buildings that held these life sized figures. The first held the most restored figures, and it also showed other figures in the process of being restored. Archeologists from many parts of the world are working on the restoration. It takes six months to restore one figure. We also went into the other buildings, then we had lunch at the cafeteria too. The food wasn’t very good, though.

We walked back to where the driver had supposedly parked, but Victor couldn’t find the bus! He left us in a cool shady spot where we could sit and wait for him. He came back and told us that he had found the bus, but the bus driver wasn’t there. The driver wasn’t answering his phone, so Victor went off to look for him. We had waited an hour when Victor finally returned. He had looked in many cafes, and finally found the driver asleep with his phone turned off!

We couldn’t go to the place we were supposed to go to next because it was almost closing time. We will see it tomorrow. Instead, we went to see the city wall in Xi’an which is the largest city wall in China if I remember right. 

This evening we went to a dinner show where we were served a dumpling dinner. The quantity and quality of the food left a lot to be desired. The dinner was held in a huge theater, and mostly tourists were in attendance. The costumes and technical aspect of the show were good. It was enjoyable and well done. This is certainly a popular tourist attraction.

13964 steps, 5.94 miles